


Sitting In A Goldfish Bowl

by Bluethenstaub



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Freak Show, Groot is just Groot, M/M, Merman Ronan, Zombie Drax, actual Raccoon Rocket, fae Gamora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 20:48:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12116961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluethenstaub/pseuds/Bluethenstaub
Summary: The Guardians go out to hunt a werewolf. They find something else instead.





	Sitting In A Goldfish Bowl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sintero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sintero/gifts).



> Eww, it's a present for sintero. Shame on me. She hates presents.

The carriage made its way through the dark forest. It was dim on the inside, rare light falling through the seams and the gaps between the tarpaulin and the carpet they used as a door, but Peter Quill didn’t need light to find anything he’d look for. Except he didn’t look for anything. Right now Peter was lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket, his head resting on an old pillow, trying to sleep. He had been awake for quite a while. The Guardians always took shifts at night to watch over the carriage, the horses, and the other, sleeping Guardians. And tonight it had been Peter who had the last shift. But sleeping wasn’t easy in a jolting carriage. It wasn’t the first time he was sleeping like this, after staying half of the night awake; he managed. Peter was an expert at blocking out everything until he was able to fall asleep.

It was midday when he woke up and stuck his tousled head out of the carriage. His green eyes scanned the forest. “We’re not there yet?”

“Obviously not,” Gamora replied.

“Shouldn’t we arrive at the town around noon?” He crawled out of the carriage and went around it to the coachman's seat. Peter loved the carriage. Originally it had only consisted of the front part, a closed carriage, once when Peter made his way through the country alone. But when the other Guardians had joined him, they soon found that it was too little space for them, so Rocket, the intelligent raccoon, came up with a solution since Peter didn’t want to abandon his carriage. They attached a covered wagon, the part where Peter had just slept in.

“No, I said that we’d arrive at the town after noon, around the evening,” Gamora, sitting on the roof, answered. 

They had heard that the town had a werewolf problem, which was no problem for the Guardians. There were more werewolves in the country than one might guess and they had dealt with their fair share of them. It was going to be easy earned money.

“No, you didn’t.” Peter sat down next to Drax on the coachman’s seat. “Did she?” he asked the gray-skinned man next to him. 

Drax had once been a normal, human man. But he and his family got killed by Thanos, the Mad Titan who came down to Earth to bring fear and destruction over all the people living there. Thanos’ father, Mentor, had felt guilty over the actions of his son and resurrected Drax with the abilities to kill Thanos and get revenge for his family’s death.

“She did not,” Drax agreed.

“Uuuugh!” With a soft thump, Thanos’ adopted daughter fell onto her back. “Why are you always agreeing with Quill?”

“I’m not always agreeing with Quill. Why would I? I don’t have any reason for that. Do you think I’m trying to get his approval or win his affections?”

“No need to feel attacked,” Gamora said.

“Dude, you’re overreacting,” Peter added.

“I am certainly not!”

Rocket on the roof snickered. “You humies got issues. Ain’t that right, Groot?”

“I am Groot,” the sentient tree said. He loved to stand on the roof when they were on the road. Peter could understand that. It was always nice to be on the roof, meters above the ground, able to see everything.

“Not everyone here's a raccoon full of hate,” Peter said.

“Not everyone here's an orphan with an ugly face.”

“Rude much? What's your problem?”

“Yeah, the usual. And we ran out of alcohol yesterday.”

“That's all on you. Why do we even allow you to drink? You're a freaking raccoon!”

Rocket jumped from the roof onto the seat. “You can't keep me from drinking, I'd outsmart you all and hide the alcohol somewhere you'd never find it.”

Peter moved closer to Drax. “Where? Your secret stash in the box with Gamora’s clothes? OUCH!”

Gamora had just kicked Peter's head. “That's for knowing what's in my box.”

Rocket snickered. “Serves you right, loser.”

“You're all as nice as always…”

 

It was evening when they reached the town and set up their tent. Peter and Gamora decided to pay the villagers a visit, stock up their supplies, especially their alcohol stash, and get first information about the werewolf and the bounty on its head.

After Gamora put on her cloak to hide her face - her skin was green, not everyone welcomed this - they left Drax, Rocket, and Groot on their own.

Something felt wrong in the town. There were almost no people on the streets.

“What's the matter? Where is everyone?” they asked the baker’s woman in the bakery they visited first.

“You're new in town, aren't you?” She smiled at them as she gave them a big loaf of bread. “The fair came to our town a few days ago. You should hurry and pay them a visit. It's really good. Especially the tent of curiosities and the freak show. They have real people from the otherworld!”

They thanked her and paid for their bread.

“It's all fake,” Gamora said. “No one of the otherworld would be so stupid and get captured by humans.”

Peter nodded in an agreement. He knew all too well about the people of the otherworld since he had been abducted as a child by Yondu and his Ravagers, a rogue pack of otherworldly creatures. “I think it's still worth checking out. Maybe there's someone with healing skills and we can bring them to join us. We could use a healer.”

Gamora huffed in amusement. “Your optimism is always funny. Go, check it out. But I promise you, nothing there's real.”

“It looks real to humans.”

“That's because humans don't see what we see.”

“I know, but still. It’s fun, I bet.”

Peter and Gamora finished their grocery shopping tour and went back to their friends. They had tried to get information about the werewolf, but somehow there was nothing to get. It looked like this town never had any problems with werewolves, not in the past and especially not now. They assumed they must have mixed up the villages. They’d find out in the next village, or maybe ask someone from the fair if they had heard something.

After a nice dinner with the freshly bought groceries, Peter asked who wanted to come with him to the fair. Drax wanted to go with him from the first minute, but Rocket was only convinced to come with them after Peter told him about the freak show. Groot happily passed and stayed with Gamora.

The Guardians knew if they brought Rocket to the fair, he’d end up in a cage sooner than he could say his name, so they’d come up with a solution for this problem long ago. He’d lay around Peter’s neck like a raccoon fur collar. People hardly doubted that Rocket wasn’t a real fur collar as long as he didn’t talk too loud.

Slowly Peter, with his Rocket collar, and Drax made their way over to the fair. There was one tent from which they could hear muffled music. A short glance inside revealed a handful of beautiful, scantily clad women who presented themselves and danced to the music.

Outside of the tents, they saw jugglers and fire-eaters, sword-swallowers, buffoons and a person who sold questionable elixirs. A small tent housed a fortuneteller. A sign announced the presence of one of the biggest and most fierce animals in the world. In said tent, they found a sad elephant, a pair of monkeys, and a hand full exotic birds.

For some reason, the monkeys hissed at Peter. He was convinced that it was because they could smell Rocket. Fortunately Rocket didn’t hiss back for once.

After the animal tent, Peter, Drax, and Rocket slowly made their way to the tent with the more exotic curiosities said to be from the otherworld.

The tent was really stuffed. There were a lot of cages and boxes, forming a complex maze for the many people to walk through. Most of the otherworldly things were fake, but the people still “oooh”-ed and “aaah”-ed at the unicorn (a regular horse with a stick attached to its forehead, cloaked in some simple illusion to make it look real), a kelpie (another horse in disguise), a young dragon (in reality, a big lizard), an angel (a normal person wearing a construct that resembled wings), and the vegetable lamb (a normal lamb, transformed by the illusionist to look like it grew as a plant on top of a small tree). There was a feather headdress, said to be worn by the queen of fairies herself, some rare plants said to be from the fairy world, beautiful seashells, and the shriveled corpse of a woman said to be the first woman who lived in this world. There were corpses of deformed animals. There was a couple of small people, a woman born with no arms who showed the crowd how she ate with her feet, conjoined twins attached by the side, “the tallest man on earth” (Drax claimed to have once seen a man who was taller), a living skeleton, a bearded lady (her beard was really impressive, Peter and Drax had to admit), and a snake man who placed himself comfortably in a small box.

But the highlight of the show was none of these. In a small, closed-off room there was a big, wooden tub and in it was a merman glaring grumpily at everyone in the room.  _ A real merman! _

He was a light blue man, a bit slimmer than Drax though he had no fewer muscles than him. He had weird black markings over his eyes down to his mouth and over his chin. On both sides of his neck were gills. He was submerged in the water from the chest down, but from what Peter could see, he had a long fishtail that got darker the deeper it got. The tail fin, which was hanging out of the tub, was deep black.

“Holy shit, he’s real!” Peter whispered to Drax who nodded approvingly.

“Poor thing. How did this happen?” Drax answered.

“No idea, come on, let’s go and ask him.” They made their way to the front of the tub. “Hey,” Peter said.

No reaction.

“We know you’re not like the rest of the ‘mythical’ creatures here,” said Drax.

Still no reaction.

“Dude, we're talking to you!”

“I have no words for mere humans,” the merman finally answered with a deep voice, smooth as silk.

“Yeah, but if you'd look closely, you'd see that we're no mere humans. Two of us aren't even human at all.”

“There are only two of you.”

“Wrong, blueberry. This one here doesn't even look remotely human.” Softly Peter poked Rocket’s snout.

Rocket growled lowly.

The merman raised a non-existent brow. “So what?”

Peter leaned forward and lowered his voice. The woman next to him was already eyeing him suspiciously. “We're going to free you tonight,” he whispered.

The merman looked him right in the eyes for a moment. Peter had never seen a color so intense and beautiful. He felt a warm tingle in his lower stomach.

Suddenly the merman grabbed Peter's shirt and pulled him even closer, pressing a kiss right onto his lips.

Peter's eyes widened in shock, but the merman had already pushed him back to Drax.

“We have a deal. Leave me alone now.” He closed his eyes and sank lower into the tub, forcing his head underwater while his tail came out a bit more.

Peter looked at Drax in confusion. “What just happened?”

“You've made a deal with a nix.”

“I fucked up?”

“You fucked up.”

“Yeah…” Peter rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Let's go back. We've seen all there is to see here.”

They made their way out of the tent. People who had seen the whole spectacle with the waterman looked at them curiously, but Peter and Drax did their best to ignore them.

Mindlessly Peter's fingers brushed over his lips. He could still feel the hot kiss on them.

 

“I'm going to kill you!” Gamora shouted. Peter, Drax, and Rocket had made their way back to the carriage and were now sitting at the fire where they had told Gamora and Groot what they’d seen. Of course, Peter had to have mentioned the plan to free the merman. He had also told her about the kiss to seal the deal.

Gamora was furious. “How do you expect us to free him! We're in the middle of a forest!”

“Don't worry, Gammy, I've got a plan,” Rocket answered. “I've got the  _ perfect _ plan.”

“Last time you had a perfect plan, Quill almost died!”

“This plan is even better. No one will be able to harm Quill. I think. His rate of survival is higher than if he does nothing. Because then Quill will die for sure.”

Gamora huffed angrily.

“You  _ think _ ? Rocket, you're talking about my life here!” Peter said.

“If you don't behave like an idiot, you'll survive. So the chance’s quite high that you'll die, idiot.”

“What the hell!”

“Yes, we're going to unleash hell,” the raccoon grinned. “Here's what we're going to do.”

 

The plan wasn't that bad. The Guardians had broken down their tents and got ready to leave the village. They had sent Groot to the nearest stream to bring some buckets full of water. They put a lid on them and stored them in the covered part of the carriage.

While Groot and Rocket waited at the carriage, ready to go at any point, Peter, Drax, and Gamora went to the fair deep in the night.

Peter carried a torch.

Shortly before they reached the fair, they split up. Peter went to the right, while Drax and Gamora made their way to the curiosities tent.

The plan was easy. Drax would go and get the merman and carry him to the carriage. Gamora was going to look out for them and would decimate everyone who stood in their way. Peter, on the other hand, would take care of a distraction.

Quietly he went to the carriages of the people of the fair. His eyes wandered around. What could be set on fire? There were, of course, the tents of the attraction, but Peter wouldn’t dare touch them. Neither the elephant nor the horses dressed in illusion did anything to anyone and weren’t to blame. No. But neither did Peter want to touch the tents of the people. Who knew who they were. Maybe there were innocent children!

Instead, he set two of their carriages on fire. That had to be enough!

Quickly, he vanished into the dark and observed the whole situation. It didn’t take the people long to notice the fire and soon everyone was on their feet, trying to put out the fire that quickly spread over to the other carriages.

Peter was pleased. Rocket’s plan had worked out. Drax and Gamora could make their way back with the merman without getting caught.

He stayed in the shadows for a while longer to make sure that no one found out that they had stolen the merman.

Rocket hissed at him when Peter came back to the carriage. “You’re late! Jump in, close the door, we gotta go!”

Peter entered the cart and found himself next to the merman whose long tail took up almost all the space.

Before he had even closed the door, the carriage started to move.

“Told you, we’d free you,” Peter said as he sat down next to him. Because of the buckets and the tail they had to sit really close.

“I’m hardly free. I’m still not able to move freely,” the merman answered.  

“Well, you could if you had legs.”

“The way you’re holding me in this carriage, I’m going to dry out in the next hours.”

“Sorry that we don’t have a fancy tub prepared. But we gotta get out of here as fast as we can or they’ll find us and you. It’s not like there’s no water here. What do you think is in the buckets? Horse pee?”

“That’s hardly enough.”

“It’s enough to keep you nice and wet.”

“It’s not enough to keep me alive for long.”

“We can take breaks. And we can leave you in the next big river if you want.”

“I don’t want to be in one of your rivers. I want to be back in the sea.”

“Sure. Whatever you want. We’ll take you to the sea, then.”

The merman grabbed Peter’s collar and pulled him close.

“Uh… You don’t have to kiss me this time,” Peter mumbled.

The merman smiled slyly. “But what if I want to kiss you again?”

Peter swallowed. “Why?”

“I’ve heard your human rumors. They say the kiss of one of my people kills you.”

“Oh.” Peter was disappointed. “So you just tried to blackmail me.”

“I did.”

“Well, I don’t believe those rumors. Do you still want to kiss me?”

“Do you want me to want to kiss you?”

“What kind of question is this?”

The merman’s smile widened. “I certainly am grateful for your troop saving me. Maybe you want me to show you some gratitude? Leave my fishtail behind and marry you?”

“...Why would I want that?” Had any of Peter’s action implied this? He tried to remember, but he couldn’t. The closeness to the merman distracted him. He was quite attractive, though, Peter couldn’t deny that.

“This is the kind of thing you humans want,” the merman said darkly. “You want everything for yourself. You steal whatever you can and destroy everything. It’s the way you’re raised.”

“Yeah, jokes on you there,” Peter mumbled. He just couldn’t concentrate so close to the merman. “I wasn’t raised by humans, but in the fairy world.”

The merman raised his brows.

“And I don’t want to marry anyone without knowing them. I don’t even want to kiss someone when I don’t know their name.”

“Ronan.”

“Huh?”

“My name is Ronan.”

Peter blinked in confusion. “Wha- do you want me to kiss you?”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I see a connection between us that I want to deepen.”

“Or maybe the only thing you want to deepen is my corpse into the sea…”

“Or maybe I want to hear you moan my name in pleasure while I’m inside you.”

“Maybe you  _ what _ ?”

“Do you always ask so many questions?”

“Only when I’m confused.”

Ronan pressed a short kiss to Peter’s lips. “Let me help clear your confusion. I want you. I don’t intend to marry or anything. I just have needs, you’re the most attractive person here, and I intend to use your body for this. There’s no need to get your hopes up that there will ever be more.”

“You will leave us, and that won’t change. I understand.”

“Good.” Ronan took Peter’s hips and pulled him softly onto his lap. “Now tell me your name, human.”

“I’m Peter.”

“Peter,” he repeated and nodded. “A nice name. I like it. Now, Peter, kiss me. Show me what you humans use your mouths for.”

Ronan didn’t need to say it twice, Peter kissed him immediately.

“I don’t know what you do to me,” he mumbled between two kisses. “Why do I want you so much?”

Ronan grinned widely and showed Peter his sharp, black teeth. “I have no answer for it. My kind doesn’t have the ability to influence this.” He kissed his neck. “You just want me.”

“I want you so much…”

Ronan hummed approvingly and bit down hard on Peter’s neck.

Peter sucked in the air.

“You’re weak, human. You’re already bleeding. You wouldn’t survive a day on your own.”

“I don’t need to,” Peter answered. “I’m not alone.”

“One day you might be.” He bit him again.

“Shut up, I don’t want to hear this right now.” Quickly Peter stood up to take off his shoes before he pulled down his pants. “So… How does this work?”

Ronan raised a brow. “You never had sex before?”

“I have. But never with a merman.” His eyes wandered down Ronan’s body. “Where’s your dick?”

“Not every creature has the pleasure to run around like you humans, Peter.” He took one of Peter’s hands and laid it on his abdomen. “This is my stomach.”

“No need to give me an anatomy lesson,” Peter mumbled.

Ronan ignored him and pushed Peter’s hand down. Ronan’s skin felt really fascinating. It was rough and soft at the same time. “My pelvis.” Once again he pushed it even more down. “And here’s the area which contains my dick, as you’ve called it.”

“What? Oh!” Ronan had shown Peter’s hand how to access an inconspicuous slit and how to get Ronan’s hard cock out of it. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s self-lubricating.” As to show the truth of his words, Ronan used it to wet his fingers. “I need you to do something.”

Peter looked at him questioningly.

“I need you to stay quiet.”

“Why?”

“Do you want your friends to come in to find you riding my cock, again and again, until I’m finally satisfied? With a bleeding neck?”

He shook his head.

“I thought so.” Ronan grabbed Peter’s hips and pulled him closer. “So try to stay quiet, Peter.”

**Author's Note:**

> What happens next?  
> a) they have sex and no one finds out  
> b) they have sex and the other Guardians hear it  
> c) someone comes in before they start doing it  
> d) someone comes in while they're doing it  
> e) the Guardians get caught and they all end up as attractions on the fair  
> Write your own sequel!


End file.
